Courtesy Regina Leader Post:

Time expired on the Saskatchewan Roughriders — and on the Danny Barrett era — one year ago in Vancouver.

The Roughriders were hopelessly flustered by the crowd noise at B.C. Place while losing 45-18 to the B.C. Lions in the CFL’s 2006 West Division final.

The decibel level produced FOUR time-count violations — that had to be a rather dubious record — and general chaos on the part of a woefully unprepared Roughriders team.

“We struggled a little bit with the noise,” quarterback Kerry Joseph recalled Tuesday. “I don’t think we had the right plan for it last year, but I know this year we’re going to be prepared for that.

“Last year, we also got behind on them, and when you do that in a stadium like that, it makes it tough. We have to go in and get the momentum on our side early.”

CBC’s Glenn Reid proceeded to ask Joseph to elaborate on his comment about not having “the right plan” in 2006.

“That’s something that was last year,” Joseph responded. “Really, I don’t want to go into details on that. This year, we’re going to be prepared for all situations against these guys. This is a different year, different attitude, different players, and we have a different mentality, so we’re going in there ready to compete.”

A few minutes later, I tried my luck — asking Joseph to outline what, exactly, went so terribly wrong on Nov. 12, 2006 in Vancouver.

“That’s last year,” said Joseph, whose smile camouflaged the fact that he was not enamoured with the persistent line of inquiry. “I keep getting the same question. I understand where you’re all going with it, but that’s last year. We’re not even looking back to last year. What we had in place last year was something totally different.

“We have a whole new coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball, so we’re going to have a different way to get in there and to deal with that.”

Joseph came as close as any holdover from the Barrett regime to questioning the strategy of the former head coach and/or his staff.

It was not Joseph’s intent to create any controversy — nor should one ensue — but instead to emphasize that measures are in place to prevent a recurrence of last year’s chaos.

Joseph referred to Barrett as “a great man” in 2006, so obviously there is considerable respect and admiration. At the same time, it was painfully evident that the visitors were ill-equipped to handle the noise — although that was not Barrett’s version of events.

“I knew they were ready to play,” Barrett told the Leader-Post’s Darrell Davis after the Disgrace at B.C. Place. “I told the guys in the pregame speech, ‘It’s going to be loud at the beginning.’ We had tried to simulate that during our practices, but this is the loudest crowd they’ve had since the ’80s. Was it all natural? I don’t know.”

The suspicion persists that the 13th Man at B.C. Place is, in fact, the functionary who operates the volume control.

With that in mind, CKRM’s Rod Pedersen presented the following question to Roughriders head coach Kent Austin: “It is illegal to play crowd noise. Does it bother you that they do in B.C.?”

“I’m not aware of whether they do or don’t,” Austin said. “If they’re breaking the rules, we would ask them to stop. We’ll be ready either way.”

Austin and his coaching cohorts are exacting in their preparation. If there is a way to effectively combat the crowd noise — or other assaults upon the eardrums — it will likely be uncovered by the Austin-led coaching staff.

“What they did last year is not relevant to how we’re going to approach it,” Austin said. “We’re going to do what we know has worked for us in the past.”

In referring to “us,” Austin is citing receivers coach Paul LaPolice and offensive co-ordinator Ken Miller. Austin, Miller and LaPolice were assistants with the Toronto Argonauts in 2005 when they defeated the Montreal Alouettes 26-18 in the East final in an enclosed environment at Olympic Stadium.

“The offensive staff that I have here — guys that have worked with me in the past — have had to deal with it in Montreal and we were very effective in our approach,” Austin said. “We’ll do some things similar to that.

“We’ll work on some things — not anything that I’ll mention here — and we’ll be prepared for the noise.”

And wouldn’t that be a refreshing change from 2006?